Roger Williams (Puritan)
'Roger Williams '(c. 1603 - 1683) was a Puritan, an English Reformed theologian, and later a Reformed Baptist, who was an early proponent of religious freedom, separation of church and state, and the Free Will Baptist movement. Williams was born around 1603 in London as the son of James Williams and Alice Pemberton. He took holy orders in the Church of England in connection with his studies, but he became a Puritan at Cambridge and thus ruined his chance for preferment in the Anglican church. Williams knew that Puritan leaders planned to migrate to the New World and regarded the Church of England as corrupt and false. He boarded the Lyon with his wife and landed in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 5, 1631. Three principles became central to Williams' subsequent career in the religious life - separatism, freedom of religion, and separation of state and church. He set out to learn the language, culture, and religion of the neighboring Native Americans without converting them to Christianity. He even began to develop a deep appreciation of the people and question the colony's legal basis for acquiring land. As the summer of 1631 ended, Williams moved to the Plymouth Colony where he was welcomed and regularly preached. After a time, Williams decided that the Plymouth church was not sufficiently separated from the Church of England, which caused controversy between the church and him. In December 1632, he condemned the King's charters and moved back to Salem, Massachusetts by the fall of 1633. The Massachusetts authorities were not pleased at his return. Issues continued until the General Court tried Williams and convicted him of sedition and heresy in October 1635. He was then ordered to be banished. In the spring of 1636, Williams and a number of followers from Salem began a new settlement in Rhode Island. He negotiated with a local Native American group for a plot of land and set up a new colony, which he called Providence.. In Providence, later the capital of Rhode Island, Williams guaranteed religious freedom and separation of church and state. He was able to keep the peace during the Pequot War in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As a result of eroding support for Rhode Island, Williams traveled to England in 1643 to find the English Civil War in full swing. He secured a charter in July 1644 and returned to America in 1654 after legal battles, serving in many offices in town and colonial governments. King Philip's War in 1675 pitted the colonists against Native Americans with whom Williams had good relations in the past. He was elected captain of Providence's militia. That war proved to be one of the bitterest events in his life, as his efforts ended with the burning of Providence in March 1676, including his own house. Williams died between January and March 1683. Family Williams married Mary Barnard on December 15, 1629 at the Church of High Laver, Essex, England. * Mary Williams - m. John Sayles * Freeborn Williams - m. (1) Thomas Hart (2) Walter Clarke * Mercy Williams - m. (1) Resolved Waterman (2) Samuel Winsor * Daniel Williams - m. Rebecca Rhodes * Joseph Williams - m. Lydia Olney * Providence Williams - unmarried.